Guide To Piligrims

One may wonder whether there is any importance in the colour of the clothes pilgrims wear during the days of austerity and pilgrimage. They are to be seen clad in blue, black and ochre.

Blue is the all-enveloping celestial colour, the colour which the Lord is said to wear. Ochre is a renunciate’s colour, while black denotes the man who is dead, dead to the world. These colours, worn with full understanding of their significance, do have a value in moulding the mind of the pilgrim. Great significance attaches even to such small matters. The modern explanation, that the purpose of these colours is only to avoid attracting the attention of wild animals during the pilgrimage through the jungle, does not bear scrutiny for if that were so it would not explain why the pilgrims wear these colours while they are in the plains also, that is, right from the time they start their austerities.